Writing Engaging Email Subject Lines

Email is an important marketing tool, but does you no good if your customers never read them. It is very important that your email subject line is eye catching, engaging and interesting. Here are a few tips.

Ask Questions
People are naturally curious. Asking them a question in the subject line may leave them wanting to open the email to find the answer. Human nature makes us curious, so this is one of the best ways to get high open rates on your email marketing material.

Keep it Short
Email subject lines are only around 50 characters. Keep your email newsletter subjects as clear and concise as you possibly can, while still conveying all the information you need to. Use primary keywords and avoid unnecessary articles like "the" and "a".

Use Print Media Headlines as Guides
Newspaper headlines have limited space to convey certain information. By reading headlines you can identify the characteristics that make it possible to express your desired information in as few words as possible.

Avoid Spamming Flags
All your hard work writing an email subject line that will intrigue your customers enough to read it will be for nothing if they never see the email because it's been filtered as spam. Avoid the following words and characteristics that are often used in spam emails:

• Subjects with all capital letters
• Multiple exclamation points and excessive punctuation
• "Free"
• "Cash”
• "As seen"
• "Your family"
• "Buy" or "buying"
• "At no cost"
• "Low rates"
• "Replica"
• "Lose"
• "Will help"

Test Your Email Newsletter Subject
There are a number of different tests you can perform on your email subjects:

• Show it to peers and colleagues and ask them if it is appealing enough to learn more information.
• Send an email with your subject beforehand. You can see for yourself what it looks like. Make sure you are saying all you want to and make sure that all the information you want to convey is visible once the email has been sent.
• Send it to several email services and see if it is picked up by their spam filters.

Keep it Legal
According to the Can-Spam Act of 2003, all email subjects must reflect the contents of the email. Always makes sure that your email newsletter contains the information promised in your subject so you conform to federal law. The most important thing to remember is that your email marketing does you no good if your customers are not reading it. If your email subject line appears to be spam or uninteresting, your customers will delete it before ever looking at it, costing you money every time. If you create email subject lines that are engaging and interesting for your customers, you will end up with more hits in the long run--and more revenue.